


This Is How To Drown, With A Grin And A Breaking Heart

by Zayrastriel



Series: The Drowning 'verse [9]
Category: Actor RPF
Genre: F/F, F/M, Zombie Apocalypse, not fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 23:17:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zayrastriel/pseuds/Zayrastriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn’t what she might have seen herself doing in Canada.  She’s not stalking Justin Beiber, and the world isn’t colour and hope.  It’s all black and grey, and reeking with the putrid scent of despair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is How To Drown, With A Grin And A Breaking Heart

**Author's Note:**

> SORRY, TRACEY.

Tracey remembers with blinding clarity the day her entire world came tumbling down around her.  It goes something like this: 4th August 2016, she wakes up blearily to the sound of the T.V, and her roommate hyperventilating.

At first she thinks that Ella’s just complaining about 1D’s tour to Canada being cancelled (she already had to deal with Lia’s poorly-concealed amusement).  But then she hauls herself out of bed, rubs sleep out of her eyes, and sees the start of the end of the world.

 

~

 

Ella gets bitten about a kilometre away from the safe-house just north of Vancouver on a surprisingly sunny-frosty September afternoon.  They make it into a corner, collapsing to the ground as Ella’s breathing grows gradually hoarser, as her skin becomes more and more pallid with the setting of the sun. Tracey sings _Baby_ to her (that’s how they met, with Tracey having it playing on her iPod and Ella demanding to listen) because it makes her friend laugh just before Tracey lights a match with a trembling hand. 

There’s no sort of anaesthetic around, no handy needle full of paralytic substance.  But there is, with a horrible sense of looming foreshadowing, a bottle of olive oil.  She adds the flame before Ella’s had an opportunity to do anything more than blink in confusion at the splash of liquid against her skin.

Tracey blocks her ears but the screams don’t stop.  They twine through and around the gaps in her fingers, settle in a thin impenetrable layer over everything she used to be.

(Sealing it away, maybe, till this nightmare ends and she can go back to being the Tracey she misses with a sort of desperate yearning that burns acidic and dark.)

At the safe-house, she sees no one she recognises, but that’s okay because when she looks in the mirror to see pallid skin, long wavy hair, and protruding bones, Tracey doesn’t recognise herself.

 

~

 

When she runs into Bree, it’s actually a complete accident.  The best kind, of course; but a complete accident, nonetheless.  It’s sometime after she’s been put to work with a couple of designers and an architect to draw up plans for the reconstruction of Vancouver as winter approaches. 

Winter is gone, and the plans are drawn up and are being effected with all the speed and efficiency of…nothing really comes to mind except a rock with herpes, which she remembers Ara once said to Raine, long ago

(in another world, it seems)

Winter is gone, and it’s hit about March (they’ve almost cleared Vancouver of the zombies during winter, thank God, but there are still pockets around that strike out at random, just when the humans have just about assured themselves that they might just be safe.)

That’s around when a handful of the New York survivors contingency makes their way up north, armed with satellite phones and the message that communications are, if only tenuously, back online. Tracey only sees them in passing, engrossed as she is in construction details for a series of tunnels that the designers claim will assure protection from zombies.  Tracey sees Ella’s face in every word, an endless montage of frozen screams and burnt flesh (and the scent tingles at her nose). 

It’s a stupid idea, but if she’s a walking shadow she’s still a walking shadow of _Tracey_ and since when has she ever been able to say _THIS IS STUPID_ to a handful of near-strangers?

She collects her tray of food in the mess hall, barely glancing up, and makes her way towards the exit when-

“Wait, Dianna…Jesus.  _Tracey_?”

She almost doesn’t turn around anyway, even though the voice rings out tantalisingly familiar.  But someone makes the decision for her, grasping at her shoulder with a warm hand and turning her around.

Through memories of a freezing winter and unfamiliar faces arises a name that she hasn’t used in years…” _Bree_?”

 

~

 

Though she knows Bree better (sort of), it hurts too much to talk to her; because every time Tracey sees her face, hears her voice, that pathetically overwhelming feeling of gratitude wells up within her.  Of-

_I know you._

_You know me._

_A phone call and familiar voices halfway across the world, and how can I ever repay you_?

She’s sort of a mess, she knows, but Bree isn’t, and it’s weird.  It’s nice to know that everything isn’t screwed up, but now she can’t help wishing she was in that _not-screwed-up_ minority of the mess the world’s become.

The first time she talks to Lia, Raine and Ara, all it takes is Lia’s cheerful, joyful _Tracey!_ for her to burst into silent tears, to see the pity on Bree’s face as she steps forwards towards the phone.

“Dude, you made the poor thing cry,” Bree says with forced light-heartedness in her tone.  Tracey waits for Ara to add something customarily- _her_ about what this says about Lia’s voice or something.

 It doesn’t come.

She manages about five minutes of conversation with Raine and Lia, and the occasionally-added word by Ara (voice strangely stilted and toneless, like she’s not used to speaking anymore) before she runs from the room.

From behind her, Tracey hears Bree sigh (pity again, and she knows she’s screwed up already, doesn’t need the reminder) before saying, “sooo, Lia, how’s the boyfriend?”

A year ago, she would have cared about this; and so this time when the tears start, she doesn’t bother with silence.

 

~

 

Dianna opens her door without warning, climbs the ladder to sit next to her on the top bunk of their army-esque beds in complete silence.

After a while, she leans back.  “Heard my brother die,” she says conversationally, with frightening casualness in her tone.  “And it was not fun, I can tell you.  If Bree didn’t find me…” Her shoulders shift in a shrug. Tracey glances across at her in time to see the shadow pass across her face, hardening her eyes and tightening her lips. 

“You seem fine,” she replies anyway, unable to stop the hint of accusation in her tone.

The other woman shrugs again.  “I’m not.  But I’ve learned to accept it, by now.”

She gives Tracey the _Look_ , the one she’s gotten from too many people.  The “ _get over it_ ” _Look_ that always grates at her nerves.  For some reason, though, it’s worse this time.

“Sorry if I’m screwed up,” Tracey snaps, surprising herself.  She’s not used to rushes of red-hot emotion, or at least not anything strong enough to dash away, if only momentarily, the dull grey lethargic despair.

Dianna laughs, and it’s a startling sound – merry and warm and enough that the red fades, but the grey doesn’t immediately rush in to replace it.  “Oh, hun, we’re all screwed up.  Sometimes it’s a bit more obvious.  But we’re all screwed up.  Your friend in the Netherlands, what’s her name again, Ara?  Apparently she was practically a robot zombie killing machine for a while.  And don’t tell Bree, but she wakes up screaming every night.”

“Why?”

A silence. “You should ask her,” Dianna says finally, just before someone calls out “ _Dianna_!” from the corridor.  “And speak of the devil – or, right now, needy girlfriend, I suppose.”

“Girlfriend?”

She gets a quiet smile in response.  “You going to be okay by yourself?”

“I think so,” Tracey replies, and for the first time it doesn’t feel like quite so much of a lie; especially when Dianna leans forwards to give her a hug, quick but tight.  She smells like flowers and nice conditioner, somehow nostalgically familiar despite the strangeness of it all.  Tracey can’t help returning the hug, squeezing tight.

 

~

 

Sometime a couple of weeks later, Tracey gathers up enough energy (read: courage) to ask Bree about what happened to her.

She feels horrible for it, but can’t help the surge of relief at knowing that she’s not alone, that there’s someone else who’s seen a life struggling before them and been forced to burn it to ashes and wispy smoke.

 

~

 

It says something about her that as soon as she starts approaching somewhere near-ish to normal (or at least, a suitable distance away from crazy), she hits boy trouble with all the speed of an inter-city Cityrail train.

At first, it’s nice boy trouble – his name’s Will, has a hot British accent, is really nice (okay, occasionally a bit of a douche but whatever).  And his assistant, Andrew, is hilarious and nice, minus the douche-ness, so he’s clearly got good taste in friends. 

What he actually looks like takes a bit longer till she manages to get a laptop of her own rather than using the communal ones with terrible video quality, but he doesn’t disappoint.

Alice sighs at her over the phone and tells her, rather indignantly, about all the times when Will has transferred her call halfway to Andrew without telling her.

Bree just laughs at her and tells her to go for it before going back to making out with Dianna, or reading fanfiction (because as long as there’s connection, the internet, it seems, is immortal.)

Dianna handwrites her a two page list on tips for flirting, and a one page ‘inspirational’ piece on relationships.  Tracey gets all of about halfway through the list of tips before storming into Dianna’s bedroom

(Only to storm back out because naked people aren’t her forte.)

But anyway, it’s totally nice boy trouble.

Right until he starts asking her about Raine, sometime in July.

At first it’s casual, in passing, nothing to worry about.

But then it hits a certain point when he tells her with no hint of shame about their drunk conversation on his birthday, the same evening Tracey had tried to call him a good five times, only to be diverted to a curiously reticent Andrew.

She listens quietly, nods and smiles at the right moment, and then steels herself to go into Dianna and Bree’s room.

(Only after knocking really loudly and giving them a good five minutes to get all their clothes on and pretend like they weren’t…doing stuff.)

She comes out the next day, stuffed on chocolate and crying and feeling good-ish despite having basically confirmed that the guy she’s in love with is into one of her friends.

 

~

 

The good-ish feeling doesn’t last.

 

~

 

But the thing is, Andrew tells Tracey, quietly and calmly one day when she calls up mildly tipsy after a belated Halloween party and somehow ends up talking to him instead, is that even though Will doesn’t want to take her away to an exotic island and live with her forever (maybe Tracey’s been paraphrasing), it doesn’t change the fact that she’s probably one of his best friends.

“ _I mean,_ ” he adds faux-casually, “ _all the others are sort of dead_.”

“Thaaaanks,” Tracey replies in a sarcastic drawl, but it does actually sort of make her feel better…

 

~

 

…Right up until New Year’s Eve when Will drunk-calls her, a month after the big massive deal to split the Earth in half that left Tracey sobbing to Andrew when she heard that Will and Raine spent a good five minutes making out on sight.

Tracey hasn’t spoken to Will since, and is about to offer some weak excuse when her friend breaks down over the phone, confesses to his (or the government’s) big evil secret plan to backstab the zombies.

“ _Backbomb_ ,” Will rectifies with a hysterical giggle that hitches, just before Andrew hauls him to his feet gently on the other end of the Skype call, voice gentle and soothing.

Tracey stays frozen in front of the laptop till Andrew returns.  “ _He wasn’t meant to tell you that_ ,” Andrew says with a sigh.  “ _There was a vow of silence and everything, too._ ”

“Is…is it true?”

“ _Are the human governments going to try turn around and wipe every zombie off the face of the planet?  We’re human.  And more specifically, we’re British.  What did you expect?”_

“I can’t just not talk about this,” Tracey protests.  “I can’t.”

Andrew huffs an amused laugh.   “ _Didn’t expect anything else.  It’s three o’clock in the morning on your end, Tracey.  Go to sleep._ ”

 

~

 

“ _You can’t tell anyone,”_ Will orders Tracey, voice panicked and terrified, three days before she calls up Lia and asks her advice. 

The next day, Lia calls her back and screams at her for a solid hour.

Because Ara almost got a gunshot to the head for asking about the plan – was dragged into a darkened room by a NATO official and pressed against the wall face-first.

(Apparently Ara has gotten really good at giving as good as she gets, but all Tracey can think about is Ella lying on the ground and screaming, screaming.  All she can wonder is whether that’s all there is for her, getting people killed.  Lighting the metaphorical match or something like that.)

A day after that, Bree enters her room.  “Hey, Tracey, apparently Raine and her boyfriend broke up.”

She feels a twinge of guilt.  “Why?”

Bree shrugs, ambivalent and curiously blank-faced.  “Not sure.”

Half an hour later, Raine calls.  “ _Nice work_ ,” she sighs. Tracey strains to hear sarcasm or anger or hurt, but there’s nothing.  “ _If it helps, though, Lia was telling Tom and Ara, and I overheard.  Called Will to yell at him but he was in a conference with some of the NATO people, and I would have got him killed if Andrew hadn’t managed to divert the call before the punch line.  Alice is having to pretend she knows nothing which, granted, isn’t hard for her but still.”_

Old Tracey would have hung up on her, or burst into tears, or just quietly said _okay_. 

But Old Tracey was young and naïve and new Tracey is old and broken, enough that she looks past Raine’s words to her tone.  “You don’t sound angry,” she notes.

“ _Mmm_ ,” Raine agrees.  “ _If I’m being honest…I think it was for the best.  As long as we don’t get Will executed, of course.  But…we need to talk about it, you know?  Like, we’re actually doing things that matter.  I’m representing the_ Netherlands _.  I’m glad you told.”_

She does know, she thinks.  Maybe.  “What about you and Will…?”

“ _Eurgh, guuuuys.  He’ll get over it, or he won’t.  It’s okay.  End of the world and all, yeah?  Who cares about a stupid guy.”_

Tracey laughs-smiles-cries, coughs back tears of relief and empathy because she can feel the lump that she knows is in the back of Raine’s throat, that she’s forcing herself to speak through.  “Yeah.  Men.”

 

~

 

“Call her back and apologise or I swear if we ever actually meet I will castrate you,” is all she says to Will before hanging up (ignoring his spluttered protests) and calling Andrew instead.

“Brief, but I think he got the point,” Andrew notes dryly, but his warm smile contradicts his tone. 

Tracey smiles back.  “Anyway,” he starts, “what-“

“We should totally do the whole long distance relationship thing,” she says over the top of him.

He falls silent, and through the video feed she can see his mouth open and close in astonishment.  “I.  Um.”  He closes his mouth, blinks a couple of times, shakes his head.  “Sounds like a plan.”

“Yay,” she says, and very carefully ends the call before running to the bathroom because the panicked nausea is really starting to get overwhelming.


End file.
